Day: April 3, 2009

If all you know about Kristen Schaal is her delightfully quirky turn as loyal fan Mel of Flight of the Conchords on the HBO sitcom, then you will want to tune in tonight as Comedy Central debuts Schaal's first half-hour special. With a medieval royal backdrop (that happens to timely coincide with this weekend's return of The Tudors), Schaal lets us in on her one-woman show about Anne Boleyn, sexy dreams, her audition for Law & Order: SVU, the journals of Clarence the caterpillar, George Washington, marriage and birds. Her comedy partner, Kurt Braunohler, also got into the mix several times, carrying Schaal onstage. "Now I know what Obama feels like!" she said to applause. As for why this is not a Kurt and Kristen special, Schaal said: "We both wanted to do it together. Because I'm more famous, they said just I could do the special." Related: Tonight only, Kurt and Kristen read the pilot of their upcoming British TV programme, "Penelope: Princess of Pets" at The PIT in NYC. Watch a couple of clips from Kristen Schaal's Comedy Central Presents: Jokes.com Kristen Schaal – Birthday Surprise comedycentral.com Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online Games Jokes.com Kristen Schaal – Sex Dream comedycentral.com Joke of the Day Stand-Up Comedy Free Online...

John Mulaney finally gets some more exposure this weekend with the debut of his first half-hour Comedy Central Presents. At the taping last summer, he got a legitimate standing ovation (TV tapings notoriously get the crowd extra excited, but this time the ovation was warranted). A couple of notes: Mulaney went with a simple brick wall background and a lone chair, which at least one person has told me was a nod to departed venue Rififi. Also, his opening bit here about a subway misunderstanding no longer has the local Long Island City reference, presumably because audiences around the world probably don't laugh as much knowing about the joys of the G and 7 trains. Not coincidentally, Comedy Central Records also has released a full-length CD from Mulaney, The Top Part. At 49 minutes, it's all great stuff, recorded in November 2008 at the Punchline in San Francisco. Recording outside of NYC gave Mulaney a chance to allow audience members to discover him, rather than already adore him as they do here in the city. Although I would tell you that if you like what you see and hear here, you really need to see him live, when his old-school delivery tends to be even more animated. Who uses the term "hobo" to describe someone's vision of Donald Trump? Who knows how to dress down drag queens? Who knows...

Congratulations, Milwaukee. You are your fine people will be part of the show on April 18 when Louis CK films his third stand-up comedy in three years, and most likely his best yet, "Louis CK: Hilarious," at the Pabst Theater. Show times: 8 and 10:30 p.m., and tickets are on sale now through the Pabst Theater box office, by calling 414-286-3663 or online here. You can thank me later. Related: Louis CK live at the Orpheum in...

New York City comedian Brad Aldous has not been performing in any stand-up shows this spring, but he has a good reason for it. Aldous is part of the "Circus" concert tour for Miss Britney Spears, putting his past clowning experience to use in arenas across North America. And he told me he has been enjoying it so far. How could he not?! Here are a couple of pictures that back that up. In this first photo, Brad Aldous is the taller guy on the left enjoying a night out on the town in Dallas with Spears and the crew after the concert. And in this second photo, this is Aldous all dressed up onstage in front of tens of thousands of screaming Britney fans. Aldous, who also can be seen every once in a while on your TVs in ads for McDonald's breakfast offerings, says to also keep an eye and an ear out for him as the announcer on GSN (Game Show Network) when the new revamped version of The Newlywed Game debuts on Monday, April...

Boston's NBC affiliate, WHDH-TV (Ch. 7), announced on its site last night that it would begin carrying an hour of news at 10 p.m. in September — going against the grain of its parent network, which plans to move Jay Leno into the primetime slot. Quite a development, considering Jay Leno long has been a hometown hero to the Hub, growing up in Andover, attending Emerson College in downtown Boston and starting out his comedy career there. But it's not about Leno personally so much as it is about falling ratings, and with it, ad revenues — WHDH's owner Ed Ansin told the Boston Globe: "We feel we have a real opportunity with running the news at 10 p.m. We don't think the Leno show is going to be effective in prime time. It will be detrimental to our 11 o'clock [newscast]. It will be very adverse to our finances." In fact, Ansin asked NBC to let him swap news for Leno and air Leno's program at 11, which would have effectively slapped another Beantown product by bumping Conan O'Brien back past midnight. Having lived in Boston before and having family there, I know the power of the local FOX affiliate's 10 p.m. newscast (and also that WHDH already is running its own 10 p.m. news hour on another station there). Here was the terse response from the network:...